by Hazel Holt
He pushed his coffee-cup to one side and said, ‘Well, now. There was something I wanted to show you.’
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a plastic wallet from which he took out a letter and handed it to me.
‘We found this in Max Loring’s desk. I hoped you might be able to identify the person it was written to.’
The letter was printed on computer paper and read:
Thursday
My Dear Sam
So you’re getting married. I wonder if your Hal knows about us? After all there was a lot of gossip around Wilmot, wasn’t there? And there’s usually no smoke without fire. I’m sure Hal would think so (didn’t someone tell me that he is a very jealous kind of person?). Will he believe you if you deny it, as I’m sure you will? No doubt your readings in great literature will provide you with many instances of jealousy that had unfortunate results (Othello, for instance). Not that Hal would actually strangle you, of course, I am sure he is far too civilized, but perhaps that substantial settlement might not materialize.
I do feel we should meet for a little chat sometime soon to see if a solution might be found that is agreeable to us both—not necessarily financial.
I shall look forward to hearing from you. Soon.
Yours
Max.
‘Oh no!’ I exclaimed, when I had read the letter. ‘Poor Sam—how utterly unspeakable!’
Mike looked at me sharply.
‘You know who it’s addressed to?’
I realized that by my exclamation I had given away any hope of pretending I didn’t know who the recipient of the letter might be.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s one of my graduate students, Samantha Broderick.’
‘Ah ...’ He beckoned the waitress over. ‘More coffee?’
There was a silence while more coffee was poured and then I said, ‘Do you think he actually sent that letter?’
‘He might have done—this could be a copy he took. I didn’t find any reply, but I guess she might have telephoned.’
‘There’s no proper date?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘That struck me as odd, but then I looked at some of his other correspondence and though he dated his business letters he only ever put the day of the week on his private correspondence—some sort of affectation, I guess.’
‘If he was anything like his brother,’ I said, ‘he was probably a mass of affectations.’
‘So what is this settlement, then?’ he persisted.
‘Oh,’ I said as casually as I could, ‘I believe it’s some sort of—what do they call it over here?—prenuptial settlement. We don’t have that sort of thing—well, only in very upper-class families where there’s a lot of property and so forth.’
‘Is this Hal a rich man, would you say?’
‘I don’t really know,’ I said. ‘I believe he has some sort of farm,’ I added, trying to make it sound like a very tiny small-holding. ‘Anyway,’ I continued, ‘there never was an affair. Loring certainly pursued Sam, pretty vigorously I believe, but she turned him down flat. I dare say he found it hard to forgive her for that—very sure of themselves, both the Lorings! There was quite a bit of gossip around the department, you know how these places are, but that was all.’
‘And is this Hal a jealous kind of guy?’ Mike asked. ‘I mean, do you think he’d take Loring’s word that they’d had an affair, even if she denied it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘I’ve never met him. It seems a flimsy enough threat to me.’
‘With a person who’s really jealous it doesn’t take much,’ he said.
‘ “Trifles light as air/Are to the jealous confirmations strong/As proofs of holy writ”, you mean,’ I said.
‘Othello.’ He took the quotation. ‘Perhaps that’s why Loring mentioned that in his note—to emphasize the point.’
There was a pause while Mike stirred his coffee and I fiddled with a little dish of very pale butter that the waitress hadn’t removed.
‘Was this Sam Broderick at the concert?’ Mike asked.
‘No,’ I replied, ‘I’m quite sure she wasn’t. In fact,’ I went on, fluent now with relief, ‘it was a fairly exclusive occasion—only for college faculty and members of the Institute, of course, and important visitors like Walter Cleveland.’
‘She couldn’t have slipped in somehow?’ he suggested.
‘The security guards were very careful to check our invitation cards,’ I said. ‘I suppose the security there has to be pretty strict—I mean, all those valuable things.’
‘I guess so.’
He sounded disappointed and I felt he was reluctant to let go of a possible suspect.
‘Have your forensic people worked out the time of the murder?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ he gave a little grimace, ‘it’s not quite straightforward. What with the special air conditioning and the fact that the body was in that air-tight chest, it’s not easy to be accurate. It seems most likely that he was killed between three and seven o’clock—though it could have been earlier.’
‘Just before the concert, then,’ I said. ‘So you have to look for your suspect among the guests.’
I paused and then said, ‘I think I may have a suspect for you.’
I felt a little mean, telling Mike about Walter Cleveland and the possibly fake Leonardo, but I decided it might divert his attention from Sam. Anyway, I was sure Walter Cleveland was more than capable of looking after himself in any investigation.
‘Do you think this secretary would testify to what she heard?’ he asked.
‘She might not,’ I said. ‘I sort of got the impression that she’s very devoted to him—that’s why she couldn’t resist telling me how clever he was and how it was only jealousy and envy that made the so-called expert say that he was wrong.’
‘Still,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if one expert could spot a thing like that I guess we could get others to have a look at the picture.’
‘So you’ll follow it up?’ I asked.
‘Sure, I follow up everything. Thanks, Sheila.’ He gave me a friendly smile. ‘Though,’ he continued ruefully, ‘I’d rather have a less powerful and influential suspect—I’ll have to tread really carefully on this one!’
‘Is there anything else you’re following up?’ I asked. ‘I mean, if you’re allowed to tell me.’
‘Well, there is one of the oldest motives in the world,’ he said.
‘Money?’
‘Money,’ he agreed. ‘It seems that this Max Loring was a rich man. Not in money as such, but he had a lot of objects, pictures, sculpture and stuff like that and our experts think they’re worth a lot of dollars.’
‘I expect,’ I suggested, ‘he used his position at the Institute to ferret out all sorts of art treasures that people didn’t know the value of and then bought them cheaply.’
‘From what I hear,’ Mike said, ‘he sounds like that kind of guy.’
‘So,’ I enquired, ‘who gets the money? His brother Carl?’
‘Carl,’ Mike nodded. ‘Who, it seems, went to see his brother at the Institute on the day of the murder and was heard to have a very noisy fight with him.’
‘No! Goodness! What was it about?’ I asked.
Mike shrugged. ‘That’s the trouble—we can’t find out. All I can get is the raised angry voices, nobody got the actual words.’ He gave me a sideways smile and said, ‘So there we are “gravelled for lack of matter”.’
‘Oh, wait a minute.’ I searched through my memory. ‘Much Ado About Nothing? No, hang on, I’m sure it’s later than that. Twelfth Night?’
‘No—it’s As You Like It. Rosalind.’ He smiled again. ‘No, several people heard them shouting in Loring’s office and one of the security guards remembers seeing Carl Loring leaving the Institute looking really upset.’
‘Did they have any other family?’ I asked.
‘No, their parents are both dead. Carl is his brother’s heir, he gets everything.’
‘Perhaps they quarrelled about money,’ I suggested. ‘From what I’ve seen Carl has pretty expensive tastes, and if Max was that well off then maybe ...’
‘Somehow Max doesn’t strike me as an easy touch,’ Mike said. ‘Not even for a brother.’
‘So I wonder what it was? You can never tell with families, what upsets people and so on.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you can never tell.’
We fell silent and after a moment I asked, ‘Do you see your daughter at all?’
‘Weekends, sometimes,’ he replied. ‘She’s in college now, Berkeley. Sometimes in the vacation we meet in New York. We stay with my sister, she’s got an apartment on Central Park West. She’s divorced, too. We don’t seem to be able to make it in my family, do we?’
‘What’s your daughter’s name?’ I asked.
‘Laura.’
He took out his wallet and produced a photograph of a girl wearing tennis clothes. She had long blonde hair caught back in a band and she had Mike’s smile.
‘She’s very pretty,’ I said. ‘Is she very good at tennis?’
‘They thought she had promise when she was a kid,’ he said, ‘and her mother wanted her to go for it—professionally, I mean. But I didn’t want her to—well, you know how it is. It takes over their lives; they never have time to be kids, to enjoy growing up naturally, the pressures are tremendous. Sure they make a lot of money, but it’s all so narrow. What kind of people do they turn into? That’s one of the things that split us up, I guess. Emma, that’s my wife, was very ambitious, for herself and for Laura—she was all for moving to California, tennis schools, you know how it goes. I couldn’t do that and I didn’t want it for my daughter. So she left and took Laura with her.’
‘So what happened about the tennis?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Laura wasn’t really good enough. She won a couple of small competitions, but that was it. She’s majoring in Economics and Math—going to be an accountant.’
‘Oh well,’ I laughed, ‘so she’ll be making a lot of money anyway, without the tennis!’
On the way back to Allenbrook Mike said, ‘I’m due to see Carl Loring on Monday. I saw him, just to tell him that his brother had been murdered, and to get a brief statement, but I need to have a real talk now.’
‘And you’ll see Walter Cleveland, too?’
‘Sure. And Samantha Broderick.’
‘Well,’ I said firmly, ‘I should think that Carl Loring’s your best bet. After all, most crimes are domestic, don’t they say? And money is the root of all evil!’
He gave me a sideways glance and said, ‘Now why do I get the impression that you’d like Carl Loring to be the murderer?’
‘Well, he is the most unlikeable of your three suspects and really a pretty repellent person.’
‘I’m afraid life isn’t like that,’ he replied. ‘I’ve known some very pleasant murderers.’
‘ “There’s no art/To find the mind’s construction in the face”,’ I suggested.
‘Macbeth,’ he responded absently. ‘Still, we haven’t explored all the possibilities yet. I got the impression from the curator, Theo Portman, that Max Loring was generally unpopular there. Who knows what motives we may turn up?’
Chapter Eight
‘So, come on, tell us what the hot news is,’ Linda said when I got back. ‘Is an arrest imminent? Or,’ she added with a sideways glance, ‘were you so taken up with each other that you never mentioned the murder?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I replied austerely.
‘So, stop stalling—tell!’ she insisted.
I hesitated for a moment, then I said, ‘Mike Landis has found a letter from Loring to Sam, threatening to tell Hal that they were having an affair.’
‘He did what!’ Linda shrieked. ‘But how could he—she hated him!’
‘General malice,’ I replied, ‘revenge, or maybe a bit of discreet blackmail. He knew about the settlement.’
‘The slimeball!’ Anna said with venom.
‘Fortunately,’ I said, ‘it seems that Sam couldn’t have been in the Institute—I don’t think she was invited to the concert, was she?—when Loring was murdered, so, even though she had a motive there doesn’t seem to have been an opportunity, thank goodness.’
‘So who else is in the frame?’ Anna asked.
‘You’ll like this,’ I said. ‘Carl Loring.’
‘Well, of course we’d all love to think he did it,’ Linda said, ‘but is there any reason for the police suspecting him?’
‘He’s his brother’s sole heir,’ I said, ‘and Max Loring had some pretty valuable things, I believe. Also, they were heard having a tremendous row on the day of the murder.’
‘Hey,’ Linda said, ‘that’s better! What was this fight about?’
‘That’s the trouble,’ I replied, ‘no one seems to know. They just heard the shouting, but couldn’t make out the words.’
‘I wonder...’ Linda began. ‘I might just make a stab at guessing what it could have been. Do you want some herbal tea?’
‘No thanks,’ I said, ‘I’m still full of shoofly pie. Go on!’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘Carl Loring had this idea about getting some prestigious international theatre company over here to do a season at Wilmot.’
‘Good Heavens!’ I exclaimed. ‘Talk about delusions of grandeur! I mean, Wilmot’s a marvellous place but—well!’
‘Empire-building again,’ Linda said. ‘It would have cost a fortune in guarantees and stuff and then the theatre here is quite good for a small college but nowhere near well equipped enough for a major company, so it would have needed a new lighting system and Heaven knows what all.’ She fished a teabag out of her mug and put it in the bin.
‘So?’ I prompted her.
‘So,’ she said, ‘he needed to raise a lot of money. It just so happened I was sitting in the next booth to him and Rick Johnson in the Blue Moon Diner the other morning and I heard them discussing it. You can imagine how Loring enjoyed showing off to a little creep like Rick. He was going on about all these glamorous plans and how maybe they could expand the cinema side of things—a larger, better equipped theatre would help Rick too—and the little toad was just eating it up. Then he asked the big, hard question. Where was the money coming from?’
‘Good question,’ Anna said.
‘Oh, Loring said, that was easy. They’d raise it from local business sources, all it needed was one big initial donation and the rest would come flooding in.’
‘Could be,’ Anna agreed.
‘And, Loring said, he could get that first donation from his brother.’
Anna snorted. ‘Fat chance!’ she said.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Linda replied, ‘but then he went on to say that brother Max had just sold the family home in Washington (apparently he’d taken it over when their mother died and he’d been working at Georgetown) and Loring reckoned that half of that money was due to him.’
‘And,’ I said excitedly, ‘presumably Max refused to hand over the money and they had a terrific bust-up!’
‘You see! It all fits in,’ Linda said excitedly. ‘And Loring was so obsessed with this plan of his he’d do anything to make it succeed.’
‘Even murder?’ I asked.
‘Well, you’ve seen the guy in action, you know what he’s like. Has to have his own way, by any means, and anything for the greater glorification of Loring.’
‘But his own brother!’ I said.
‘They weren’t that close and, anyway, he’d have thought it was his right—half-share of a family inheritance. No, what you have to do now, Sheila, is to call that nice cop of yours and tell him you know what the fight was about.’
‘Oh, well,’ I hesitated, ‘he’s off duty, he won’t be at the police station.’
‘You’re not going to tell me that he hasn’t given you his home number,’ Linda said.
‘Yes, well ...’
‘Well, then!’ Linda said. ‘Get movi
ng! You can use the phone in my study, you’ll be quite private there!’
She and Anna exchanged smiles and I said with dignity, ‘I certainly couldn’t have a serious conversation about murder suspects with you two giggling away like a couple of schoolgirls!’
Mike sounded surprised to hear from me, but, I thought, pleased.
‘First,’ I said, ‘I’d like to thank you for a lovely day.’
‘It was my pleasure. To tell the truth I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for years—you’re very good company, Mrs Malory, do you know that?’
‘It was fun,’ I said and went on quickly. ‘Actually, the main reason I’m telephoning is that I think I may have found out why Max and Carl Loring were quarrelling.’
I told him what Linda had said and what she had overheard.
‘Well now,’ he replied, ‘that’s pretty interesting. When I’m on a case I always like to hear about people falling out over money, it’s a real solid motive. Money is good news.’
‘ “Money is like muck, not good except it be spread,” ’ I said.
‘Hey! You’ve got me there,’ he said. ‘I can’t think what that’s from.’
‘I cheated,’ I said, laughing. ‘It’s not Shakespeare, it’s Bacon—though there are some who’ll tell you that’s the same thing.’
‘I just don’t believe those guys,’ Mike said. ‘Shakespeare is Shakespeare and you’ll never convince me otherwise.’
‘You’ll feel that even more strongly when you’ve been to Stratford,’ I said.
‘I’m even more determined to go now,’ he said. ‘Now that you can show me around.’
‘So when are you seeing Carl Loring?’ I asked.
‘Monday afternoon. I wanted to make a few enquiries about his financial situation and I’ll have to check with his bank, especially now. I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe you’ll be in Katy’s Kitchen late Monday afternoon?’